The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

First Line: This story begins with a dream, and not a particularly spectacular one at that.

In many businesses the world over, the mantra is "What have you done for me lately?" It's true in journalism, and Mikael Blomkvist's detractors take every opportunity they can to tell the world that Blomkvist is over the hill, that he doesn't have what it takes anymore. That's all about to change.

Blomkvist receives a tip from one of his sources who claims to have vital information given to him by a young female hacker. It's too intriguing for Blomkvist to ignore, and he turns to the one person he knows can help him find the truth: Lisbeth Salander. In no time at all, the two of them are drawn into a world of spies and cybercriminals, many of whom are more than willing to kill to keep their secrets.

When I learned that David Lagercrantz would be continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium series, I was intrigued... but cautious. The first thing I did was get my hands on a copy of Lagercrantz's book Fall of Man in Wilmslow, a mystery featuring Alan Turing. I was disappointed, but I love the characters of Salander and Blomkvist so much that I couldn't stay away from this newest book. For the most part I wish I had. 

Like Fall of Man in Wilmslow, there are large sections of the book in which not much happens. In fact, it took until right around page 200 for the pace to finally pick up. 

The worst part for me was the lack of Stieg Larsson's splendid characters, Blomkvist and Salander; in fact they almost seem like pale imitations of themselves. Yes, this book is competently written, but it lacks Larsson's passion, his fire for his story and his characters. I just heard that there's going to be yet another book in the series written by Lagercrantz. I have learned my lesson. This time I'm going to leave it alone.
    

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz
Translated from the Swedish by George Goulding

eISBN: 9780385354295

Alfred A. Knopf © 2015

eBook, 396 pages 

Amateur Sleuth, #4 Millennium/Lisbeth Salander

Rating: C+

Source: Purchased from Amazon  


  

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

Title: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Author: Stieg Larsson
Translated from the Swedish: Reg Keeland
ISBN: 9780307269997, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010
Genre: Thriller, #3 in the Millennium trilogy
Rating: A
Source: Amazon Vine

First Line: An estimated 600 women served during the American Civil War.

To those of you who aren't up to speed with Larsson's trilogy, I am going to try my best to avoid giving things away, but it's not going to be easy.

In the last book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Lisbeth Salander-- portrayed as being worse than the Devil himself by media and police-- confronted her very real, very human, demons. In this book, she realizes that confronting them is not enough. She is going to have to destroy them. What goes against her grain is that she is forced to trust journalist Mikael Blomkvist, even to the point of letting him run large sections of the show.

This book even more than the previous two relies on intricate plotting and the pieces fitting together exactly. This book, more than the other two, showed unevenness and sections that needed a much sterner hand at editing. Because the plot was intricate, Larsson spent pages explaining various government agencies, how they were set up, the people they reported to, and so on. These were the sections of the book that made my eyes glaze over.

Another subplot involving Erika Berger, the former editor of Millennium magazine, although illustrating what many women have to deal with in male-dominated sections of the workforce, was really unnecessary and moved the focus away from the most fascinating characters: Salander and Blomkvist. Even Salander's trip to Gibraltar could have been shortened.

Any time the action moved away from that two-character focus, the book began to drag, which is why I feel that it would have benefited from stricter pruning. But was I greatly disappointed in the book? No. I had to see the outcome of Lisbeth Salander's story. Was she going to succeed? How was she going to succeed?

Larsson has given me a wonderful offbeat Dulcinea and her Don Quixote. I may always wonder what the books would have become if Larsson had been allowed to work on them himself, but the characters will always remain: a young woman who refused to accept that everyone else was more important than she, and the man who believed her.